I Put Down 140,000

I'm Feng Ning, a project manager at Shengchuan Company. On November 10, 2023, three days after the Qingping Power Station was connected to the grid, the company's HR department unilaterally handed me a "Voluntary Resignation Application."

I had covered 146,220 yuan in project expenses for the company. Of that, 32,000 yuan came from pawning my mother's keepsake, a gold bracelet.

I didn't make a scene, and I didn't sign. I simply pulled a kraft paper envelope from my desk drawer: every receipt for every expense over the past three years, recordings of every call, every queue ticket, and every photo with a timestamp watermark. There were 347 items, not one missing.

The company thought I'd leave like everyone else, carrying a cardboard box. At 3:23 p.m. on November 13, 114,220 yuan was deposited into my account. The text message said, "Paid in full in a single installment." But at 9 that morning, I had already been sitting at the arbitration court's case-filing counter. I filed first; they paid later.

"I don't want a penny more," I said, "but I won't accept a penny less than what I'm owed."

Filing the case, jurisdictional objections, forensic appraisal, losing at trial, turning the tables on appeal. By the clumsiest means possible, I nailed the word "evidence" back where it belonged, one piece at a time.